August 29, 2013

Modern radical thinker Slavoj Žižek spoke on
the 1st July as part of the 'Great Minds' series, and affirmed his status as a
great mind of modern philosophy and social, cultural and political theory.
Starbucks, social solidarity and self-commodification were among the varied and
enlightening topics touched upon by Žižek, all grounded by his interpretation of
ideology and its continuing importance.

One of Europe's foremost Marxist
theorists, Žižek criticised modern leftist groups who, he argued, didn't really
know how to cope with the upheaval of the 'sublime' moment (revelation that an
assumed state of total happiness is actually nonexistent). The question of 'what
happens next' has been asked since the dwindling exhaustion of modernism into
postmodernism. Žižek asks us to put ideological pressure on modern life,
confirming the presence of ideological symbolism even in blatant popular culture
(such as two Oscar-winning films, The King's Speech and Black Swan
[2010]).

His manner was sometimes serious, sometimes comic and vaguely
apocalyptic (he is a self confessed pessimist), which all together made for an
engaging talk, dense in historical, anecdotal and political references. The
combination of issues allowed the modern audience member to examine their own
behaviour alongside Hegelian optimism, Freudian self-commodification and Marxist
ideas of social roles, in a non 'academic' sense, referring to the purchasing of
Starbucks coffee as a subconscious purchasing of social solidarity built into
the price. An audience member asks 'isn't it the case that people know that what
they're doing is buying a coffee that will then, in some sort of self-serving
way, make them feel better about themselves?', thus showing that ideology is no
longer a 'smokescreen' of sorts. Žižek answers by claiming that we follow
things, knowing that they are ideologies, and this does not necessarily make
them 'right' or true. This is where the notion of ideology seems to be headed;
to a total self consciousness -- as with a Hegelian resolution of the
'Zeitgeist' (Žižek is actually close to the publishing of an 800 page book on
Hegel).

In his relatively brief talk, Slavoj Žižek managed to expose our
susceptibility to certain ideologies, thus proving their ever present role in
modern society - not bad for a Friday night in West London, perhaps the capital
of the British bourgeoisie.